oppn parties PM-POSHAN: Better Meal Scheme For Schools With Wider Coverage

News Snippets

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  • Experts speculate whether Ding Liren wants the world title match against D Gukesh to go into tie-break after he let off Gukesh easily in the 5th game
  • Tata Memorial Hospital and AIIMS have severely criticized former cricketer and Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu for claiming that his wife fought back cancer with home remedies like haldi, garlic and neem. The hospitals warned the public for not going for such unproven remedies and not delaying treatment as it could prove fatal
  • 3 persons died and scores of policemen wer injured when a survey of a mosque in Sambhal near Bareilly in UP turned violent
  • Bangladesh to review power pacts with Indian companies, including those of the Adani group
  • The Indian envoy in Bangladesh was summoned by the country's government over the breach in the Bangladesh mission in Agartala
  • Bank account to soon have 4 nominees each
  • TMC and SP stayed away from the INDIA bloc protest over the Adani issue in the Lok Sabha
  • Delhi HC stops the police from arresting Nadeem Khan over a viral video which the police claimed promoted 'enmity'. Court says 'India's harmony not so fragile'
  • Trafiksol asked to refund IPO money by Sebi on account of alleged fraud
  • Re goes down to 84.76 against the USD but ends flat after RBI intervenes
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  • Asian junior hockey: Defending champions India enter the finals by beating Malaysia 3-1, to play Pakistan for the title
  • Chess World title match: Ding Liren salvages a sraw in the 7th game which he almost lost
  • Experts speculate whether Ding Liren wants the world title match against D Gukesh to go into tie-break after he let off Gukesh easily in the 5th game
  • Tata Memorial Hospital and AIIMS have severely criticized former cricketer and Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu for claiming that his wife fought back cancer with home remedies like haldi, garlic and neem. The hospitals warned the public for not going for such unproven remedies and not delaying treatment as it could prove fatal
  • 3 persons died and scores of policemen wer injured when a survey of a mosque in Sambhal near Bareilly in UP turned violent
  • Bangladesh to review power pacts with Indian companies, including those of the Adani group
  • The Indian envoy in Bangladesh was summoned by the country's government over the breach in the Bangladesh mission in Agartala
  • Bank account to soon have 4 nominees each
  • TMC and SP stayed away from the INDIA bloc protest over the Adani issue in the Lok Sabha
  • Delhi HC stops the police from arresting Nadeem Khan over a viral video which the police claimed promoted 'enmity'. Court says 'India's harmony not so fragile'
  • Trafiksol asked to refund IPO money by Sebi on account of alleged fraud
Australia thrassh India in the 4th Test, dim their chances of making the WTC finals, Rohit, Virat and Rahul fail once again
oppn parties
PM-POSHAN: Better Meal Scheme For Schools With Wider Coverage

By Linus Garg
First publised on 2021-10-01 06:32:38

About the Author

Sunil Garodia Linus tackles things head-on. He takes sides in his analysis and it fits excellently with our editorial policy. No 'maybe's' and 'allegedly' for him, only things in black and white.

The government has replaced the national mid-day meal scheme for school students with PM-POSHAN, a better scheme with wider coverage. The new scheme proposes to provide one hot meal to all school children from pre-primary stage. It proposes to cover 11.8 million children in 1.1 million government and government-aided schools, enrolled in classes 1-8. The Centre will spend Rs 54061.73 crore while the states will contribute Rs 31733.17 crore. With the Centre bearing an additional Rs 45000 crore as the cost of food grains, the total outlay of the scheme will stand at Rs 130794.9 crore. The scheme also proposes to focus on promotion of nutritional gardens.

The two best things about the new scheme, apart from its wider coverage and focus on promoting nutritional gardens, is that the states have been given the right to decide the menu and audits of the scheme has been made mandatory. The first is important as eating habits of children are different in each state and even in regions across the states. A fixed national menu would not have served the purpose. The menu should be set by each state based on local preferences but keeping in mind the nutritional value of the meal. As the National Family Heath Survey (NFHS) -5 had disclosed last year, malnutrition and undernutrition is taking a heavy toll on the growth of children across India. As per data available, stunted, under weight and wasted children are growing in number. One nutritional meal per day will help in reversing this trend apart from inducing parents to send children to school. But it all depends on how the scheme is implemented as reports of children being fed just a roti and salt showed that the earlier scheme was plagued by corruption, at least in some states.

If the PM-POSHAN scheme is properly implemented, it will allow the government to efficiently utilize a part of the buffer food grain stock from India’s overflowing granaries, allow it to reverse the trend of children who are not growing properly due to malnutrition and undernutrition and increase enrolments in schools. For this to happen, proper checks and balances are needed at each stage of the scheme and both the Centre and the states need to keep tabs. The mandatory audits need to be done properly and accountability for lapses must be fixed beforehand.